Low neutrophil count?

[blindswelledrat]

Anyone know anything about this?
How dangerous is a low neutrophil count (sub 0.75)?
Is it just a case of anything you might catch will need antibiotics to cure or does it mean that you might catch much more dangerous illnesses than you would otherwise?

[The Beaver King]

I have Aplastic anemia, which basically means all my blood cell types are low to very low.

I find that I don't really get ill often, but when I do it tends to hit me harder. So things like a bad cold will kick the crap out of me or any kind of infection means I need quite strong antibiotics.

Recovery from illness can also take a bit longer, but nothing too dramatic.

To answer your question, I wouldn't say you become ill more often or are more at risk of serious illness. You just tend to get hit harder by being ill and it takes longer to recovery. I find that if I become quite ill (beyond a blocked nose or sore throat) or get an infection, I go straight to the doctors and get them advise me.

My specialist told me to er on the side of caution, as things can develop into something serious if not treated.

That said, this is my personal experience.

ETA - A neutrophil count of 0.75 is considered moderate, dropping below 0.5 is when the doctors can start to worry. For comparison, my level tends to sit around 0.25 from memory, although it has dipped lower a few times.

I was told that if mine dropped below 0.1, then it was blood transfusion time... joy....

Edited by The Beaver King on Thursday 24th October 13:16

[blindswelledrat]

So do the antibiotics do the job of the neutrophils, the only difference being that the neutrophils get to work early and prevent illness wheres the antibiotics can only fight it once it's taken hold and you know about it?

[The Beaver King]

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure.

I believe that your body can fight off certain infections to an extent, but more serious infections require antibiotics which reinforce the neutrophils. I'm not a doctor though, so I don't know the medical detail. Any form of illness or infection generally requires me to have antibiotics, but I believe this is just the doctors playing it safe.

I would suggest speaking to your doctor about a flu jab. People with underlying health conditions receive them free and it's definitely worth getting done. Flu and low neutrophils are not a good combo...

[blindswelledrat]

Cheers.
Id still be curious to know the answer to the above if there are any doctors around

[Burrow01]

I had this during Chemotherapy - the chemo killed all my white blood cells -I asked what my count was, and they said that they could not find any white cells at all!

I was pretty stupid and had a meal that was a bit dodgy (home made scotch egg in a pub - tasted great :-() this gave me Campylabacta food poisoning, which I could not get rid of, which then made me severely dehydrated, which then knackered my kidneys...

In essence you are open to any bacterial infection floating around and once you get it, it will hit you harder, and be harder to recover from - potential outcome can be pretty serious as you can see

I had to have injections to stimulate the creation of the white cells before I could continue the chemo

[Flibble]

blindswelledrat said:

So do the antibiotics do the job of the neutrophils, the only difference being that the neutrophils get to work early and prevent illness wheres the antibiotics can only fight it once it's taken hold and you know about it?

More or less. They both do a similar job - killing bacteria (neutrophils can also kill viruses and are much more specific about what they target though). If you take antibiotics prophylactically (i.e. before the infection) then they're about as effective, but of course you rarely know when you're going to get infected, so you have to wait for symptoms. Neutrophils also help stop infection from wounds since they often have bacteria and dirt in - they clean that up.